On Sunday evening, I received an e-mail from one of the editors at WordPress, informing me that my latest post The Delight of Hand Writing had been selected for theFreshly Pressed Homepage, and that it would go live within a day or two. Naturally, I was delighted. I have been writing a weekly column since February 2011, and this is a first for me. Last night, just before going to bed, I checked the Freshly Pressed page, but my piece was not on it, yet.

This morning, like every morning, the first thing I did was switch on my BlackBerry. The e-mail notification alert started beeping continuously. It would not stop. I panicked. Last time I had received so many e-mails was when I had been hacked. I looked on the display screen. 253 e-mails. I rushed to my laptop, my BlackBerry still beeping every few seconds, demanding my attention.

While I was asleep, my blog piece had gone live on WordPress. While I was asleep, in England, other parts of the world were awake – and 1,853 people had read my blog, some of whom had clicked the “Like” stars, commented, reblogged me and/or subscribed. Hence, all the e-mail notifications. There were 85 comments pending.

In a state of overcharged joy, anxiety and disbelief, I went to work. I desperately wanted to tell someone about what was happening, and how my head was reeling but there was nobody I could ring at 7.45 a.m. Many of my friends are showbiz people – and so would not be awake then; and those with daytime jobs would be busy. I took myself to my morning class on automatic pilot, utterly stunned, trying hard to focus on what I was going to teach. Vocabulary. Animal idioms. Infinitive and gerund verb forms.

After class, when I switched on my BlackBerry again, more e-mails started flooding in. As I write this, the view count has reached 2,984, and there are 130 comments pending. Europe is awake.

I want to thank you all, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you to all those who subscribe to my blog and have supported and encouraged me for the past year and a half. I would most especially want to thank those of you who leave comments – be it on the WordPress blog or privately by e-mail. Your comments mean a great deal to me. They are an acknowledgement, an encouragement and an act of true generosity. It is you (I would like to name you but you all, I hope, know who you are) who have kept me writing in the knowledge that there are people out there worth writing for – even when I feel lazy or unmotivated.

I also want to thank all the people who have read my blog since last night – and all those who are about to read it (3,011 views and 133 comments pending now). I hope that you may continue to read my Sunday posts, and enjoy them.

Heartfelt thanks and apologies to the 134 people, so far, who have left such incredibly kind comments, and reblogged my piece. I will now read and tick “approve”, though it may take a little while to get through them all. I would like to respond to everyone’s comment so, again, please bear with me for the next few days.

Thanks for the inside view of what it’s like to get Freshly Pressed, and congratulations again, if I’ve forgotten to say it before. Now we all know (even those of us who met you recently for the first time) how much hard work went into creating your blog, and we can further adjust our own dreams by your success. Keep those posts coming, they’re very well done!

It sounds like you’d forgotten that you had friends oversees. You could have called me at 7:45am in the morning, even if we were in the same time zone. Congratulations on a well-deserved, watershed moment in your writing journey and professional life — you are a fine writer. I couldn’t help but think of the critical mass theory when I read this. Here’s wishing you wild success that snowballs into prosperity and good health.

Dear Lady! (I am your reader from Turkey)
Hope you never give up writing your Sunday posts… They seem to become a sort of fresh breath for me… I loved the style, the open expressions in their simple nature and the open mind you set in your blog…
You can’t guess how it feels when someone you follow periodicaly, suddenly stops posting one day… It is like losing your favourite novel somewhere by the sea side on one of the sunbeds while the most exciting pages were up to be read!
And again, hope to read more from you… 🙂
Welldone!

Many congratulations, Katia.
Even if for my poor English it’s sometime hard to appreciate the fine nuances of your writing, I can get the elegance of your style and the deepness of your thoughts.
I’m sure you deserve the biggest success.